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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Sunday Baking: Honey Jumbles

I love baking, as I've mentioned before. Unfortunately, with all the other stuff that's been going on (and DAII) I haven't been doing much of it lately. But this week the lovely @missrbit has been doing some baking of her own and bringing samples to work, so I was inspired to do some today. Dave requested a chocolate apple cake, but I couldn't find a recipe for which I had all the ingredients, so I decided to make Honey Jumbles instead. He got the recipe from a coworker who bought some to work recently - I'm sorry I don't know where it's from originally. These are apparently best made the day before eating, to let the spices develop. You can ice them pink and white with food colouring if you wish (I didn't).

Turn mixture on to surface dusted with the extra flour, knead lightly, working in only enough of this flour until mixture loses its stickiness; divide mixture into four equal pieces to make handling the dough easier.

Pre-heat oven to 180C. Roll one quarter of the mixture into a sausage shape, so that it is 1cm thick; cut into 6cm lengths. Place on lightly greased oven trays about 5cm apart. Round blunt ends of biscuits with floured fingertips, bake 8-10 minutes. Repeat with remaining mixture. Biscuits should be pale golden in colour and quite soft. Cool on trays. Do not overcook or they will become hard and dry.

Pre-heat oven again to 180C. Place egg white in a small basin, gradually stir in sifted icing sugar in about three lots, then sifted flour and enough strained lemon juice to give a thick coating consistency. Spread tops of biscuits evenly with icing, stand on oven trays, return to moderate oven for 2 minutes, or until icing feels firm to touch and has lost its stickiness. Do not move biscuits from the tray until cold.